


Happy Endings

by allollipoppins



Series: A force of mind and circumstance. [3]
Category: The Boy (2016 Bell), Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Boy (2016) fusion, Choose Your Own Ending, Dark Victor Nikiforov, Lima Syndrome, M/M, Morally Ambiguous Katsuki Yuuri, Possessive Victor Nikiforov, Stockholm Syndrome, Yandere Victor Nikiforov
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-08
Updated: 2018-01-12
Packaged: 2019-01-31 02:47:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12666684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allollipoppins/pseuds/allollipoppins
Summary: Previously titled "The Bride Stripped Bare By Her Bachelors, Even""You'll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it. Don't be deluded by any other endings, they're all fake, either deliberately fake, with malicious intent to deceive, or just motivated by excessive optimism if not by downright sentimentality." - Margaret Atwood, "Happy Endings"C - The "alternate" endingB - The "bad" ending





	1. The Lover (To Your Nightmare)

**Author's Note:**

> Am I sadictic or am I masochistic? Eeeeh a bit of both really.  
> Joke aside, this thing just wouldn't leave me. This is probably a terrible, no good idea but I just needed to get it out. Especially after defining Victor's MO for chapter 2 of the Erlking earlier (spoiler: that boy is sick af).  
> (Also I came to this exam like two hours too early and I needed to kill. Time. I needed to kill time.)  
> This is really just a preview at the moment, but it will be updated once The Erlking is finished so please bear with me :)

_The only “me” is know is me, but I know there are others out there, sharing the same name, the same face, the same hurt. But to a degree I cannot possibly fathom. Could I be going through the worst of it in another universe, or is my brief respite only the beginning?_

 

_Trouble, it seems, will somehow always manage to find me everywhere._

 

_The way we end is our curse to bear, a fixed point in time that can't be rewritten forever._

 

_The only crystal clear assurance that this world has taught me, and perhaps the most positive of them all, is that this place will end, and I with it._

_One day, maybe tomorrow, maybe in a couple of years, in several decades or even before the end of the day, I will die. As will you._

_As dogmatism goes, you can as such conclude what inevitably follows:_

 

_Victor and I will die. Me and Victor will die. We will die._

 

_Yuuri Katsuki, failed figure skater, meets Victor Nikiforov, prodigal son of Anastasia and Vladimir Nikiforov on a Monday in the aftermath of a rainy morning, tiny porcelain hand clutched in his own, larger, warmer, lively._

_Yuuri meets Victor in the premices of a funeral, standing in a pool of blood, pale face marred with human remains and blue eyes shiny with a sentiment I later came to identify, for lack of a better word, as love._

 

_I am – but am I? – a danger to my jailer._

_I am – but am I? – temptation in the eye of the beholder._

_And both my jailer and my beholder are one and the same person._

 

_What happens next?_

 

_If you want a happy ending, try A._

 


	2. C - The alternate ending

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you may have noticed there are no more 7 chapters for 6 endings, but instead 4 chapters for 3 endings. Because, let's be honest, it's like horror franchises: you can only milk them so much until it stops being interesting.  
> I also meant to update this one after the Erlking, but inspiration struck in the most unlikely of periods: finals week. And I just couldn't get that one idea out of my head, so here we are. I fear you may find it a little cliché once you are done, but I personally quite like it. Though I have a feeling I'll enjoy writing the next ones even more.  
> This chapter was inspired by two works of fiction. The first being the script of Uncle Charlie, the prequel to the movie Stoker, which was never filmed in the end. Part of the dialogues and the general inspiration for the scene were taken from that script. The second source of inspiration was a particular scene from the movie "Hannibal" (2001), with a twist. But I shall say no more and let you read on ;)
> 
> This is from Yuuri's pov and set post BW.

A pair of eyes caught his gaze. Thousands of them stared back at Yuuri from behind their cage of glass. Beady, black charcoal eyes rising from the heart of every single page like water overflowing from a well, bleeding into the grey iris and pure white sclera. The centrepieces of many elements that composed the lush, anatomically-correct sketches, exquisitely rendered down to the last eyelashes. Dark, inscrutable from underneath the curtain they made.

 

There was no more floor left to be seen. Where tiles had once been paper was strewn here and there, covering the entire surface. The man at work sat at the centre of his circle, legs folded under himself, the crowning piece of his work of art.

 

“It is rude to stare, Doctor.”

 

Yuuri barely contained the sharp gasp that escape him, nearly jumping in place at being caught out on his indiscretion. The artist made no further move to acknowledge him, attention wholly focused on smudging the charcoal with his finger.

 

“Forgive me,” Yuuri stuttered. “I… You looked so concentrated, I didn’t want to disturb you.”

 

The man behind the glass smiled wryly. In on a joke only he knew. “I will take it as a compliment. For that alone you’re forgiven, dear child.”

 

He raised the very same finger he had used to smear the mineral. An almost imperceptible nudge that Yuuri had come to learn was a subtle, silent beckoning. Powder still tainted his fingertip.

 

The patient stood up slowly, with reptilian languor, looming above Yuuri even from a distance. Even dressed in the uniform all inmates were made to wear, he managed to pull it off as well as if it had been a three-piece suit; hair cut short with stray locks falling over his left eye, shirt neatly tucked in his pants, loafers spotless, he might have belonged better on the other side of the glass, in his stead if not by his side.

 

They faced each other from both sides of the glass, neither of them flinching from the other’s gaze.

 

He was the first to break eye contact, gaze flickering to an object on his far-left, at reach but hidden from Yuuri’s eyes. “I drew something for you, Yuuri.”

 

He placed the object – a roll of paper, Yuuri noted – inside his sliding food tray, then pushed it his Yuuri’s direction. It whipped open with a metallic hiss.

 

Yuuri tentatively took a step forward, then two, then three, until he was at his eye level. Only receiving the small, sly little smile he had grown accustomed to for the past months. An invitation.

 

Yuuri delicately extracted the roll from the tray, as if it were made of a finer material that could crumble to dust at any moment. It weighed more in the palm of his hands that he had expected, noting the thickness of the pages combined. He had gone as far as tearing threads out of his uniform, twisting and knotting them into a makeshift ribbon. A child’s work that remained messy all-together, but a nice thought nevertheless. He carefully seized a corner of the fabric, knot loosening under the pull he gave, until it fell limp caught between his fingers.

 

There wasn’t one, but several sheets of creamy, high bond paper that uncurled inside the package. Dozens, maybe more sketches adorned with a calligraphed signature at the bottom right corner of each page.

 

His face looked back at him from across the paper. Yuuri. Yuuri, Yuuri everywhere… Although not quite. One Yuuri had long hair that tickled past his ears, another one sporting a bob that reached his shoulders or was tied back in a high ponytail. Another Yuuri had short hair, closer to his current haircut where the next sported locks cut far too close to his skull. Some had his black hair and others have pepper-salt strands hidden within it. Some had full lips and some had smaller, pursed lips. Some wore glasses and shades, others squinted at an invisible ray of sun… A thousand combinations and variations, all focused on a sole, unique theme.

 

The only thing they had in common were the eyes...This, Yuuri was almost positive about the eyes. From what he could tell they all appeared to be identical. Small, almond-shaped and contoured by a myriad of eyelashes, eyes open wide and expressive. The irises stood out at the centre of the eye, more so than the pupils. They had a maroon, wine-coloured quality to them, a hue he was certain his patient couldn’t possibly have obtained on his own with only charcoal pencils.

 

“I’m afraid these aren’t too good,” the voice chirped in front of him, “I never seem to get it right. Maybe one day I’ll finally convince you to sit and model for me, capture your essence. I do hope you still like them enough to keep them?”

 

“I do,” Yuuri admitted. And like them he did, begrudgingly so. This was all kinds of wrong, accepting gifts from a psychopath. But Yuuri knew that if he were to refuse the consequences of his acts might be just as worse. He swallowed back the “I really do” building at the back of his throat. It tasted too forceful in his mouth. “These are beautiful, thank you.”

 

A slightly wider smile spread on the other’s lips, more sincere than the previous ones. If Yuuri didn’t know better, he would have thought he looked almost relieved.

 

“I’m glad you like them.” His gaze momentarily flicked to the glass right in front of him, where the cool pane fogged up in contact with his breath. Yuuri’s own side of the glass was also partially covered by the fog, bursting forth at short intervals, shy of getting denser.

 

“You really shouldn’t stand so close to the glass, Doctor. A good doctor would respect his fellows’ ethics.”

 

Yuuri chuckled lowly, the rasp inside his throat tearing at him like a sob. “Please. It’s not like you ever cared about what is proper between us and what’s not.”

 

The answering chortle was enough of an answer. His dentition was perfect. Pearly white teeth arranged in linear rows, like little soldiers. They had to give him a mask every time they had to get him out of his cell, having developed a habit of biting people. Last time he had sunk his teeth so deep into a nurse’s arm they had had to amputate it.

 

“No. But I guess I can’t help but feel concerned.”

 

Yuuri frowned, his reflection mirroring him from where it crossed with the patient’s features. “Why would you be?”

 

He didn’t answer. Instead, he backed away from the glass pane, treading with light footing and avoiding his unfinished sketches until his knees hit the back of the mattress. He lowered himself down, sitting in an upright position. His eyes fell into the contemplation of the wall opposite the bed. The wall was surprisingly bare, compared to the rest of the room. All other surfaces, bar the bed, were laden with a multitude of items. Stationery on the desk, foldable calendar on his bedside table, pens scattered all around the room.

 

“I had the strangest dream last night Doctor.”

 

“Did you?”

 

“Oh yes, yes I did.” He turned to Yuuri with excruciating slowness. “You were in it too.”

 

That caught Yuuri’s attention. “Could you tell me about it, Victor?”

 

The mention of his name seemed to catch him off guard, the ligatures of his throat contracting as he inhaled sharply, small hairs standing on his forearms.

 

“I’m not so sure I can do that, Yuuri. I cannot see or remember clearly, but the end… oh, the end. I have it on the tip of my tongue,” he pressed on every “t”, the appendage clicking against his teeth and palate.

 

“Maybe closing your eyes could help you visualize it.”

 

“Maybe. Maybe indeed Yuuri, you are quite right.”

 

His eyes were open, but the pupils remained unmoving, unfocused, lost in mute contemplation. They finally closed whilst still facing him. Yuuri exhaled lowly once the twin sapphires were out of sight.

 

“What do you see when you close your eyes?”

 

“Hum. Now what do I see... What. Do. I. See. . .”

“I see eyes.”

 

“Eyes?”

 

“Yes. I see eyes. Looking at me.”

 

“Can you see who or what they belong to?”

 

“That would be a “who””.

 

“Are they a man, a woman, neither?”

 

“I’m not so sure. I would say male, though. Definitely male.”

 

“Alright. What else do you see?”

 

“I see skin... It's smooth. Supple.”

 

“And?”

 

“Hair... Soft. And thick.”

 

“What else can you tell me about them?”

 

“I see a … a mouth. Pink and a bit swollen.”

 

“I see. And what else can you tell me about his face?”

 

He cracked an eye open at that one. “Who said I was talking about his face?”

 

Yuuri’s cheeks flushed at the implication. The mirror image smirked through the plexiglass, then sighed.

 

“The truth is... The truth is I don't have dreams anymore... Not at night anyway. Most of the time I just lie awake and stare up at the ceiling. Now I seem to do all my dreaming during the daytime. That's when dreams are most useful, I think... When you're awake.”

 

“You know, when I was little, and Aunt Lilia would babysit me, and we were all alone in the house, I used to dream there'd be a knock on the door. And when we opened it, we’d find a state trooper standing on the front porch... And with tremendous delicacy, he would tell us there’d been an accident out on the freeway... And they were all gone. Just like that. Mother. Father. Uncle Yakov. Sasha...”

 

He paused, eyes focused on something Yuuri couldn’t see on the brick wall. “Poor little thing,” he murmured. Yuuri almost thought it to be true.

 

“You were a child, Victor. What happened was an accident, nothing more.”

 

“Oh, we both know that wasn’t the case, Yuuri, don’t pretend it wasn’t. Or I shall be very, very angry.” Yuuri promptly shut up. If there was anything he had learned, it was to never underestimate Victor’s quiet threats.

 

“And then,” he followed, “we'd walk around the house together deciding what we were going to keep and what we were going to throw away. And I’d always remind Aunt Lilia to set aside one or two things for charity, just for appearance's sake….I think it’s important to appear charitable, don’t you?

 

Yuuri considered his answer, wondering how to indulge him. That was probably the most he had heard coming out of his mouth. Victor barely ever spoke to anyone. When he did dare to do so, it was to exchange accented, rapid-fire Russian pleasantries with Mila and Georgi that didn’t last long. Their version of small-talk, Yuuri supposed. He had tried to take up Russian, if only to try and understand what the three of them said to each other. Merely safety precautions. But if he were honest, it was mostly to try and pull Victor into a conversation.

 

He pondered it. “Sounds counterproductive to me.”

 

“How so?”

 

“Charity is supposed to be an act based on disinterest,” Yuuri offered. “By appearing charitable you would give it a value, but if you play it without a true interest there is no point. Doesn’t it lose its meaning if it comes with an ulterior motive?”

 

Victor lifted his head in his direction again, looking at him from across the room, thinking.

 

“There’s something on your mind. You wouldn’t toss it out here without reason.”

 

Victor smiled, satisfied. This one tended to make him want to punch him in the face. “Touché, Yuuri.”

 

 

“You were given the opportunity to leave when you were 18 years old, and yet you stayed. And here you are.”

 

Victor allows himself a fond smile. “I like the company I keep.”

 

Yuuri sighed. “I won’t be here for long, Victor.”

 

Victor blinked. “But aren’t we friends, Yuuri?”

 

“It’s Doctor Katsuki to you, Victor. And sadly I cannot consider our relationship to be that of friends. I remain, after all, your doctor and you are my patient.” Not for long.

 

“Still you say “sadly”. And you never mentioned honorifics before, not with me. And I know you doctors take this whole title affair very seriously. Surely it means you want something more out of this, don’t you?”

 

Yuuri sighed. “It means that I would like to think you and I have forged an understanding based on trust. Mutual trust that I hope you’ll be able to build with people that are not me.”

 

A single ray of sun passed on Victor’s face, furtively slipping inside the room from the window, before being chased away by a shadow, a cloud passing in front of it no doubt. Victor’s confused expression stayed longer.

 

Yuuri smiled, his lips wobbling so much he had to sink his front teeth in his bottom lip to stop himself from continuing. “I hope… that you will keep that in mind for your next session.”

 

Yuuri nodded, sniffing at the air as if waiting for something else to say. When he couldn’t find it, he started to back away from the cage.

 

“See you next time.”

 

Yuuri stopped on his tracks. “Sorry?”

 

Victor’s voice betrayed no feeling, stoic as the first day. “You always say “see you next time” at the end of our conversations, Yuuri. Last time you said goodbye we had only met each other.”

 

His lips pressed into a thin line, not daring to smile further. Anymore and he might not take it. “Would it make things better if I said goodbye?”

 

* * *

 

Celestino’s voice droned its way to him, all the way from the living room’s answering machine to the kitchen. Yuuri had set it on replay and had already listened to the chief of staff long enough to pour himself a second glass of whisky, the alcohol progressively slithering its way through his body.

 

“Yuuri. It’s Celestino… again.” Celestino sighed, his own tiredness seeping from the machine and cracking slightly with the static. “I heard about what happened at the hospital, and I’m sorry they should have let you go so soon. It’s not your fault, I think you did a great job. But the rest of the board you and Nikiforov got, well…,” he hesitated. A moment passed before he finally settled on a word: “Close. Too close for their liking. It’s probably nothing, I trust you on that. Look, I’ll try and see if I can rectify the situation, pull in some of my contacts. In the meantime… call me, please? Make an old man feel better.”

 

He sighed as the beep resounded from the other room, announcing that the message would be running again. He threw back the contents of his glass, letting the soft burn at the back of his throat warm him. The exhaustion of the day was moving its way inside him much faster, his eyelids threatening to droop. One more glass, he thought, one more glass and I’ll be off to bed.

 

Yuuri reached for the bottle just as the message started to play. The bottle was inclined mid-pour when Celestino’s voice pronounced his name, then stopped abruptly.

 

Yuuri’s eyes opened wide with a start. The pause in the record had occurred directly after his name had been called, barely a two-seconds’ time before it ceased. It had simply clicked, a dry sound like pressing a button on a transistor to switch stations or songs, or simply to turn it off. Yuuri’s breath hitched in his throat, blocked and unable to get back inside his lungs or to leave. The bottle that had come to a halt in mid-air settled back beside his glass on the table, at a tortuously slow pace. Soundless, though out of use when the whole room was bathed in light and no movement could go unnoticed.

 

Yuuri made out the steps as they came closer, feeling their way through the dark hall, partially brightened by echoing rays of light. His shoes made a dry, almost imperceptible sound on the hardwood – or was it Yuuri’s heartbeat frenetically drumming in his ears? As it reverberates, the intruder imitated them. Left foot forward, right foot forward, left foot forward, right foot forward. Break.

 

“We cannot entertain delusions that do not serve,” he said, only a few feet away from Yuuri, and yet so close he could feel his breath on his nape, hear his heart pulsing through his ribcage, in perfect harmony with his own. Ripe with anticipation and hope.

 

“I had to leave, Yuuri, do you understand? I needed to know. I need to know for sure...” A hand slipped in his peripheral vision, pushing a paper on the table angling a paper in the light so he could see it better. Not that he needed it to know who it was.

 

“Yes,” Yuuri replied, fingers distractedly tracing the rim of his glass as he tipped his head to the side. No sooner did he do so that lips closed onto his skin, nose buried in his collarbone, breathing in madly. “I missed you too.”

 

* * *

 

They found the house stock still when they burst in, all the rooms bathed in silence and darkness. A tumbler of whisky and its accompanying glass sat on the kitchen table, previously nursed but left to cool.

 

The only sound that broke the emptiness of the apartment was the constant beep of the answering machine in the living room, set to replay the same message every minute. One of the cops sent on patrol recognized Phichit Chulanont’s voice on the telephone, near hysterical, caught between a sob and a scream.

 

“ _Yuuri? Yuuri this is not a drill, I repeat this is not a drill! Victor Nikiforov has escaped from the hospital, he could be anywhere by now! Yuuri we think he’s coming for you! Yuuri please if you’re here pick up the phone now!”_

 

The only evidence they could find was a single piece of paper, left in the kitchen. A charcoal portrait of the missing, Yuuri Katsuki, accompanied with a note at the back.

 

_“I will take care of him. I promise._

_V.N.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [A friend and I started the joke that "C" is for "Cruel". "C" could also, to some extent here, refer to "Clarice Starling".]  
> To clarify, this is a possible ending. While it is not the official ending or the potential bad ending, I felt it could happen in an alternate universe. So if you don't like it or consider it a possible canon that's totally alright :)  
> Next will be B, the "bad" ending. Though bear in mnd that all the chapters are theoretically "happy endings".

**Author's Note:**

> Funny story: I dug out some old drafts of mine from hs and hoepfully there are things I can save (it's mostly original fiction stuff for a Red Riding Hood au and a soulmate au but eyy I'm drowning under the plot bunnies)
> 
> My twitter: AriL10N355  
> My tumblr: allollipoppins


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